


Don't You Hear My Call? (Though I'm Many Years Away)

by RDcantRead



Series: Stockings 2019 [1]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Reality Bending, Sad Brian May, Sad Roger Taylor (Queen), Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21957592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RDcantRead/pseuds/RDcantRead
Summary: It wasn’t like he was expecting anything to happen. Who expected something like that to happen? It wasn’t every day that you went to bed and woke up years earlier.
Relationships: Brian May/Freddie Mercury
Series: Stockings 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580743
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28
Collections: DL Stockings 2019





	Don't You Hear My Call? (Though I'm Many Years Away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lover_of_blue_roses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_of_blue_roses/gifts).



> Title from "'39" by Queen.

It wasn’t like he was expecting anything to happen. Who expected something like that to happen? It wasn’t every day that you went to bed and woke up years earlier. 

Well, maybe it had happened before - Brian wouldn’t know. The fact of the matter was, it hadn’t ever been scientifically documented, and Brian hadn’t ever experienced something similar to it.

And it was awfully convenient that he was brought back in time twenty years earlier - exactly twenty years earlier - on the twenty-fifth of November, nineteen seventy-one. 

The initial shock hadn’t come until Brian finally woke himself up from the dazed sleepiness surrounding him and noticed that he was in their old Kensington flat and that yes, that was Freddie Mercury singing in the shower as Roger snored on in the bed across the room from him and John was making breakfast. 

And Roger’s blond hair was long and the mattress he was sleeping on was lumpy and uncomfortable rather than the soft mattress he shared with Anita at home. John’s hair had the length that perfectly showed the styles of the seventies, and Freddie… how could Brian start talking about Freddie?

He was alive. And if Brian had anything to say about it, he would never die on the twenty-fourth of November, nineteen ninety-one. He would grow old and Queen could go on because Brian really had no idea if they continued doing anything without Freddie after his death.

He didn’t count on falling in love with Freddie along the way. It was just Brian trying to be a good friend, to stop Freddie from falling into the spiral of endless lovers, day after day, night after night. It was just Brian wanting to keep Freddie from the terrible fate brought on by that horrible illness, the gaunt cheeks flashed through his memory as he thought about it. He never wants to see Freddie like that ever again.

So it continued, years passed and nineteen ninety-one seemed so long ago, and so far away at the same time. But it wasn’t all a breeze, Brian’s knowledge of the future might have stopped some things from happening, such as his horrible bought of hepatitis in nineteen seventy-four. 

But Brian knows that it can’t last. He can stop some things, but he has no idea how to stop the things that never happened. Just like Roger’s unexpected downward spiral after his breakup with Jo, never having struck a solid friendship with Dominique, and Brian and Roger’s weakened relationships.

Brian thinks that he should have seen this coming. He knew that his and Roger’s friendship wasn’t as strong this time around, given Brian’s preoccupation with Freddie’s possible death. And so Roger was falling as Brian and Freddie’s relationsh- friendship, their friendship - flourished. John fell into the background as he and Roger fell away from the limelight and group friendship of Queen.

It’s the twenty-fifth of November, nineteen seventy-six. It’s been five years since Brian came back and Brian’s given up on coming back, he wants to go back to his reality. Seeing your friends breaking down due to your interference is nearly worse than watching Freddie slowly deteriorate due to an illness no one understands.

He can see John and Roger grow closer as they grow farther apart. 

Freddie is just as beautiful as he always was and Brian wishes it wasn’t so, but he’s falling for him. It’s making it harder to miss his reality. If it even exists anymore. He doesn’t know which time-travel theory he should consult when it comes to this. 

It’s almost inevitable that something goes more wrong than it’s already shaping up to be as the very fabric of reality starts to fall apart around Brian. As Brian’s world starts to obsessively revolve around Freddie, the world starts revolving around Brian. 

But he knows that Freddie would never love him until he doesn’t. 

Freddie kisses him. One day. The adrenaline of post-concert is to thank for Brian and Freddie’s brand new relationship and once his compulsion for saving Freddie is satisfied, he can see the damage and destruction surrounding him. John being drunk or absent more often than not, Roger’s vacant expression morphing into hot flashes where he allows no one but Crystal to touch him.

He takes the same route to the studio every day, but the route changes; left turns instead of right turns, varying street lengths. He always gets to the studio at precisely eleven minutes past nine, no matter what time he left. 

Roger looks emaciated and pale, his nosebleeds more frequent as Brian tries desperately to find a way to fix this. To fix his mistake and to make everything go back to the fried eggs and toast of the twenty-fifth of November, nineteen seventy-one. He needs to go back to the twenty-fifth of November, nineteen ninety-one. He thinks that this was always meant to end in tragedy.

He works. He works at repairing his relationship with the rhythm section (Back Chat’s lyrics are a bit different this time around) which the years of neglect has ruined.

He works to make his friendship with Roger strong enough to survive the test of time. He wants to help. It’s the twenty-fifth of November, nineteen eighty-three. 

It’s gone on long enough. The lies, the secrecy, the endless guilt piling up and up after twelve years stuck in this world that tries to trick him, in this world that makes the world behind Brian crumble and rebuild anytime he looks back. Nothing is as he remembers, and the only constants are his bandmates. Not even their roadies are constant. 

Their music isn’t constant, flipping between the sound Brian knows and remembers and the sound Brian hears. He tries so hard to fix whatever Brian has broken.

And he has broken it. He’s ravaged this poor unsuspecting universe, destroyed it and ransacked it, taking with him Freddie Mercury and leaving behind the man he once called “brother” and the one Freddie saw as his to protect, to keep, to cherish.

He’s mauled and attacked and he’s left nothing in his wake. But the universe doesn’t want Brian gone, or else why would it let him here in the first place? It keeps breaking down and rebuilding, keeping the only things that matter the same. It’s sending him a message.

And Brian receives it loud and clear. He makes the effort, he works at getting Roger and John and Freddie and Brian to be a team. To be a family. Because that was what they were, before all this. 

And the twenty-fourth of November, nineteen ninety-one comes and goes, with Brian and Freddie celebrating fifteen years. Brian dreads what happens next. 

He closes his eyes and wakes up. The smell of eggs and toast filtering in through his nose, and he briefly thinks “oh fuck” as he hears Freddie’s beautiful voice and the sound of a shower running. But then he opens his eyes. And he’s back. He can feel that the universe has gone back to normal. Or at least, has stopped protesting. 

It’s November twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-one, and Brian May has done it. He’s accomplished what he set out to do, with a few bumps in the road, granted, but he’s done it. And Queen is living on, forever. 


End file.
